It looks like 2014 might be a profitable year as well

The tech industry has seen a hefty rise this holiday season, with stock prices remaining at their yearly highs. TechSpot reports 45 tech IPOs out of the United States over the past year, which happens to be the most seen since thirteen years ago in 2000. The forecast for 2014 is looking awfully sweet as well, with mobile game and storage companies looking to enter the fold.

While many of us are busy preparing to toast and dine with our friends and extended families over the next few weeks, some industrious folk are still grinding away, foregoing the joys that the season affords for the sake of squeezing a few additional pennies out of the markets before they close for the holidays. For those who of you who prefer to wash their eggnog down with a bit of work, there’s Google Finance, our Chrome Web App of the Week.

It hasn’t been easy for RIM these last couple of weeks. There was that nasty outage, more CEO shenanigans, and only passing notice of the company’s announcement of the BBX platform. In the wake of all this, RIMs stock price has dropped again, which (sadly) isn’t usually news these days, but this time the company has crossed an important threshold. RIM is now worth less than the net value of its property, patents and other assets.

Much beloved music streaming company Pandora is taking quite a beating in just its second day of public trading. After making its IPO yesterday, the stock price started to inch downward, but today that inching became a free fall. The Stock price fell 24% today to a bit over $13 per share. Additionally, it is still slumping in after hours trading.

In what's starting to become eerily reminiscent of the Dot-com boom that took place in the 1990s, the popular tech companies to today are trending towards going public. LinkedIn started it by soaring 170 percent on its first day of trading, which no doubt prompted Groupon to file for a $750 million IPO. Now Pandora wants in on the action and has filed for a comparatively modest $109.5 million IPO.

Microsoft just can't catch a break. The tech giant reported their first quarter results, and they managed to beat analyst expectations. Microsoft had revenue of $16.43 billion for the which is a 13% increase from a year ago. Income was $5.23 billion, or about 61 cents per share. So why is Microsoft feeling down about these admittedly huge numbers? The market isn't impressed. Redmond is seeing stock dip 2% in after-hours trading.

Apple has long been considered the stock market darling of the tech industry, defying trends even through one of the worst recessions in recorded history. Marketing mojo seems to be capable of overcoming any manmade disaster, but this time they find themselves at the mercy of an even more powerful force, Mother Nature.

Bloomberg is reporting that Groupon is now printing money. By which we mean, the company is mulling an IPO valued at a whopping $25 billion. Groupon has only been in operation for two years, but already banks are reportedly unlikely to assign a value less than $15 billion, and the higher number Groupon is gunning for is a real possibility. Who'd have thought coupons were so big?

While we don't cover all things Apple (we leave that to Mac Life), the news out of Cupertino today has affected everyone in the tech community. Apple CEO Steve Jobs sent an email to all Apple staffers to announce that the board has granted his request for a leave of absence to focus on his health. Of course, the internet is full of assertions that Mr. Jobs may be gone for good this time.

It may be no small coincidence that the announcement came on Martin Luther King day in the US. Markets are closed, so any overreaction to the news was muted. In Frankfurt, markets reacted negatively, with Apple stock losing 8%. The very business-like timing of the release makes us think this was not a last-minute emergency decision.

However you may feel about Apple products, there's no denying Steve Jobs has been a huge driving force in computing for decades. Jobs has survived pancreatic cancer and organ transplant in recent years. We wish him the best, and we're sure you all do too.

Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) has reported earnings today and industry watchers weren't too happy. The company missed analyst expectations and the reason is pretty clear. Competition from Android and the iPhone are eating into RIM's business. Verizon, which was traditionally a Blackberry heavy carrier, has been getting into Android in a big way. Additionally, consumers continue to jump ship for the iPhone for non-business activities.

It's not all gloom and doom, though. Revenue did rise 24$ to $4.24 billion, but expectations were around $4.35 billion. RIM's stock took a pounding, but the smartphone maker isn't standing still. RIM will be buying back $31 million in stock to help stabilize the company. Investors are growing concerned that RIM will become increasingly marginalized as other platforms continue to take off.

RIM isn't going away anytime soon. They're a profitable business, and people that use Blackberrys often love them. Do we have any diehard Blackberry fans out there?